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Losing the fixed-width font is annoying to me. I frequently have code or logs in emails, and these are horrible to read in a variable width font because column

Losing the fixed-width font is annoying to me. I frequently have code or logs in emails, and these are horrible to read in a variable width font because columns don't align, and ^^^ indicators don't line up. I'm curious why this was abandoned.

btilly 17y ago
When they came out with themes I went through every theme they had until I found one with a fixed width font. Admittedly everyone laughs at the terminal theme. But it does the trick. And the green on black is surprisingly comfortable to read.
jonknee 17y ago
It should be reasonably easy to make a custom stylesheet for this feature.
- graywh 17y ago
  One already exists for the Firefox plugins Stylish/Greasemonkey. It should be trivial to adapt for other browsers that allow custom stylesheets. http://userstyles.org/styles/22246 http://userstyles.org/styles/22246
fragmede 17y ago
Moreover, fixed-width font was probably a pretty easy lab feature to write, and was already written. The other dropped features were also already written. Why then, prune the list of lab features? Was the list of features getting too long and no one wanted to put in the effort of categorizing them? Or was this some market-droid idiot's idea of justifying their existence? (I was (also) a fan of fixed-width...) Alternately, is it possible that there is a front end 'overhaul' coming down the pipes, and the abandoned lab features weren't worth updating?
- stilist 17y ago
  Pruning features is as essential to software quality as adding new ones.
- nimrody 17y ago
  Maintaining stuff most people don't use is an unnecessary headache. Yes it works today but what if some future gmail feature breaks it? I'm pretty sure even Labs go through some sort of QA process.
- hboon 17y ago
  Because dropping features, especially those that the majority don't use, aren't polished enough (UI or stability/quality) or causes too many support issues is a good way to keep a product nice and lean. Not that I know why they dropped it.
dboyd 17y ago
I enabled this feature for a similar purpose (exception reports from running apps). However, even with fixed-width available, I almost always go after the "show original" feature* instead. I find that having the message isolated in a separate tab altogether makes it much easier to read. * "Show original" is under the drop-down menu for the message itself.

btilly 17y ago

When they came out with themes I went through every theme they had until I found one with a fixed width font. Admittedly everyone laughs at the terminal theme. But it does the trick. And the green on black is surprisingly comfortable to read.

jonknee 17y ago

It should be reasonably easy to make a custom stylesheet for this feature.

graywh 17y ago
One already exists for the Firefox plugins Stylish/Greasemonkey. It should be trivial to adapt for other browsers that allow custom stylesheets. http://userstyles.org/styles/22246 http://userstyles.org/styles/22246

fragmede 17y ago

Moreover, fixed-width font was probably a pretty easy lab feature to write, and was already written. The other dropped features were also already written. Why then, prune the list of lab features? Was the list of features getting too long and no one wanted to put in the effort of categorizing them? Or was this some market-droid idiot's idea of justifying their existence? (I was (also) a fan of fixed-width...) Alternately, is it possible that there is a front end 'overhaul' coming down the pipes, and the abandoned lab features weren't worth updating?

stilist 17y ago
Pruning features is as essential to software quality as adding new ones.
nimrody 17y ago
Maintaining stuff most people don't use is an unnecessary headache. Yes it works today but what if some future gmail feature breaks it? I'm pretty sure even Labs go through some sort of QA process.
hboon 17y ago
Because dropping features, especially those that the majority don't use, aren't polished enough (UI or stability/quality) or causes too many support issues is a good way to keep a product nice and lean. Not that I know why they dropped it.

dboyd 17y ago

I enabled this feature for a similar purpose (exception reports from running apps). However, even with fixed-width available, I almost always go after the "show original" feature* instead. I find that having the message isolated in a separate tab altogether makes it much easier to read. * "Show original" is under the drop-down menu for the message itself.